Bear
Noumenon

Bear. A name, a guarantee. 

From such a name, you can expect a powerful, frightening sound, just like encountering a bear during a peaceful picnic with your girlfriend (which I believe few people actually do).

We enter the musical realm I love the most. Djent, but not the usual, syncopated and "easy" to understand like Periphery or Veil of Maya; here the limits of harmony and melody are surpassed to achieve a sound that, due to its strangeness, is fantastic and enjoyable to listen to.

With this second album "Noumenon," released on October 7, Bear offers a djent that is sick, mathematical, with most riffs quite incomprehensible to an untrained ear, examples being tracks 3 and 4 "Rain" and "The Falling," which with certain passages even frightened me, a regular listener of bands like Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza and similar.

The work from a guitar perspective is perfect; sure, it's unsettling and incomprehensible at certain points, but perhaps that's the factor that made me fall madly in love with this band right from the start.

The voice. This deserves a separate chapter. 

The singer's vocals hypnotized me throughout the album, raspy, fierce, and powerful. Naturally, there's also an unsettling component here; for example, in the track "Rain," I listened to the clean vocal parts more than 20 times, as I was drawn to them from the first listen.

Overall, this album is a difficult listen for ears accustomed to "pure" and easily understandable sounds like the already mentioned Periphery or any other band, yet it can truly be enjoyable, with tracks that are different from one another and never repetitive.

The sick component of this album is a positive factor for me, indeed, an ULTRA positive one; for others, it might be a flaw. Therefore, it's known that my opinion can't be entirely objective, but I warmly invite you to enjoy this gem alongside me, offered by this noble Belgian quartet.